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Oh hi! I was just wondering whether this thread existed, and of course it does. Have some pictures of my attempts at making placenta, going by the translation in Dalby and Granger from Cato's farming book, using an upside down steel bowl to emulate a testum:   This was just a little test case in advance of potentially serving it at our baby shower. But I think I either ran out of time or decided it needed a lot more refining before I would serve it to people. It tasted OK (can't go too wrong with cheese and a ton of honey), but the texture was very chewy. As the authors note, Cato probably screwed up in copying the recipe, and also probably never baked or cooked a meal himself. Some people have had success replacing the pastry with modern puff pastry, but my partner also can't eat gluten, and gluten-free puff pastry was way more effort than I was able to put in right before/after our kid was born. Anyway, worth a try if you want to mildly troll your friends at dinner parties. "And for dessert, we have placenta..."
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Dec 6, 2021 23:05
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If you want to maximally troll them make placenta, and then put placenta in it
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Dec 7, 2021 02:57
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Lol. Well, in other news I made a Roman chicken thing! It was a bit of a "we have a pack of chicken thighs and we need dinner -- quick, research an Ancient Roman recipe" thing. I found this recipe for a chicken "stew", which is actually more of a "chicken braised in its own juices". I had to substitute garlic for the asafoetida, and I didn't have any fennel seed (gotta put that back on the shopping list) or rue (left the plant at the previous place I was renting). I also discovered that my mint has been largely overcome by oregano, so I used that instead of the rue, and a bit of dried mint. I also used Thai fish sauce in place of garum, as one does. The recipe doesn't call for it, but I browned the thighs in olive oil before adding the sauce (and didn't mix any olive oil into the sauce itself, since it was in the pan already). Oh and I don't actually have a pestle and mortar, so I blended everything in a Vitamix instead. Watching the video now afterwards, I realise I used a lot less herb than they did, but the result was still quite delicious!  I served it with bread (just boring store-bought bread), and some kale sauteed with garlic and a bit of fish sauce. (There are some green beans in there because they're our kid's favourite right now, and he doesn't quite have enough teeth to handle kale.) The chicken was immensely tender and juicy. Apparently the original recipe by Apicius recommended either reducing the sauce and then serving it over the cooled chicken, or discarding it. I didn't have time to reduce it, and it was way too delicious to throw out, so I just served it au jus and dipped the bread in it.  Overall this was surprisingly quick and easy to put together, and I would do it again. (Doing it for a whole chicken, turning regularly over the course of an hour and a half, would be a bit more of a process though.) Bonus: that same site has a version of the placenta recipe, along with a video where they make it in a reproduction testum. They stick faithfully to Cato's recipe, but mention a few key points, like using a cheese that's not too moist, so it melts nicely, and toasting the tracta well before layering them. I guess I may try it again sometime.
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Dec 7, 2021 06:15
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Shooting Blanks posted:Welsh Rarebit. I was able to get a couple tips from them shortly before they closed - one was to add some mustard to the mix, the other one was to add some strong flavored beer. Nothing too one note like an IPA, but a good brown ale or something. Make a cheese sauce out of that, top the toasted bread with it, toss it under a broiler for a couple minutes and you're good to go. I keep meaning to replicate it but I never think about it other than times like this when someone else mentions the dish. Just browsing the thread, and thought I'd add that Worcestershire sauce is another key ingredient in the cheese for a Welsh rarebit.
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Dec 7, 2021 06:24
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Does anyone have any recommendations for a dinner recipe that uses Garum? I know its similar to fish sauce, but im hoping for something more mediterranean and in theme of its origins.
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Dec 11, 2021 02:09
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ZombieCrew posted:Does anyone have any recommendations for a dinner recipe that uses Garum? I know its similar to fish sauce, but im hoping for something more mediterranean and in theme of its origins. The chicken I made above was pretty tasty and called for garum. I'd say take a browse through this site for anything labeled "Ancient Roman": https://historicalitaliancooking.home.blog/english/ Those are real recipes, mostly from Cato or Apicius, but they seem to all have been tested, and most have accompanying videos. I think the authors are Italian re-enactors or something.
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Dec 11, 2021 09:50
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Tasting history (a YouTube channel) did an entire Roman week not that long ago, and there have been other Roman dishes since. They also give a link to this European stuff that is the closest thing you’re gonna get to garum in a modern commercial product . They also show you how to actually make garum from an ancient recipe if you’re extra keen.
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Dec 11, 2021 10:42
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Yeah also Tasting History. Between those two you should have a pretty good selection of recipes with modern/adjusted ingredients and quantities, and YouTube videos to show you how they turn out.
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Dec 11, 2021 18:32
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Excellent! Thanks all!
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Dec 12, 2021 19:40
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Sad news today, folks. I'm hearing from the goon grapevine that Chitoryu passed away. Pour one out for a good poster. 
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Feb 10, 2023 16:24
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RIP. They had fantastic posts and threads and the forum is lesser from their loss.
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Feb 10, 2023 16:27
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Feb 10, 2023 16:40
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oh no
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Feb 10, 2023 16:46
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Mods, how about goldmining this thread in remembrance? We all had good times here, and we're sorry to get the news.
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Feb 10, 2023 17:01
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By popular demand posted:Mods, how about goldmining this thread in remembrance? this would be a nice gesture
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Feb 10, 2023 17:45
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Goldmine the ration thread too
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Feb 10, 2023 18:01
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Oh, that’s awful. 
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Feb 11, 2023 20:32
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Ah dang I was just getting here to revitalize the thread in remembrance - If anyone's interested, I'm doing a thread about my home-scale DIY maple syrup project https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4023893 Maple is a great historical source of sweeteners!
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Feb 12, 2023 00:35
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gently caress, I saw a bunch of new posts and was NOT expecting that. gently caress! I enjoyed many of his posts/ threads like this thread, his "Let's Read"s of terrible books like Ready Player One, much of PYF... always seemed overall a charming, funny, and knowledgeable poster. He will be missed.
JacquelineDempsey fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Feb 12, 2023 |
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Feb 12, 2023 18:31
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A nice little article about the history of Italian food lately.
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Jul 16, 2023 07:13
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Can you post the text, Tycho? It's paywalled.
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Jul 17, 2023 03:38
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dino. posted:Can you post the text, Tycho? It's paywalled. Not sure why but I've clicked on the link through twitter and it seemed to load fine, but paywalled if I tried to access it from SA. Here's an archived mirror
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Jul 17, 2023 03:49
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goku i won't do what u tell me
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honestly if twitter worked out an arrangement with big news sources that links from twitter would always bypass the paywall that would be kind of awesome (pls note i do not like or use twitter in its current form, but i can dream about good uses of the tool) ANYWAY that article is a trip. I can't believe how angry people get about food history. I guess this guy is kind of critiquing the whole culture by picking at one of its mainstays, but the reaction is still wild. To get publicly scolded by an ambassador is hilarious to me.
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Jul 17, 2023 13:40
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KRILLIN IN THE NAME posted:Not sure why but I've clicked on the link through twitter and it seemed to load fine, but paywalled if I tried to access it from SA. Here's an archived mirror Super interesting and something that I've been smelled lately. Someone put me onto that Pasta Grannies channel and nearly every one of the really old women or men they have on there would hint basically at this - "would you eat this regularly?" "A dish with meat? No. Once per year. Usually beans."
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Jul 17, 2023 14:35
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Something very similar happened in Finland after the war for similar reasons. Most of the traditional dishes had no animal products (because most couldn't afford them) but people were ashamed of this and started adding meat and cream to everything and claiming this to be the traditional way. At the same time part of the country developed a heart disease epidemic that got a government intervention. The country basically went from 8 percent of the population dying in a famine in 1868 to the population killing itself with hard fats in less than a century. I'll try and translate some recipes some time for actual thread content.
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Jul 17, 2023 16:09
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see, i had always assumed the the bland tendencies of finnish food were because y'all were too used to eating things freshly hunted, traditionally, and had therefore missed out on preservatives and spices. (I do in fact know Finnish people who are great cooks and also vegetarians, but as a lazy visitor the convenience food available tended to be extremely underwhelming) Would like to see some really old recipes.
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Jul 17, 2023 19:30
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CommonShore posted:Super interesting and something that I've been smelled lately. Someone put me onto that Pasta Grannies channel and nearly every one of the really old women or men they have on there would hint basically at this - "would you eat this regularly?" "A dish with meat? No. Once per year. Usually beans." Does this mean that what we consider meat dishes were originally made with beans? Could I substitute the meat in a Bolognese sauce for beans to approximate what people used to eat?
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Jul 18, 2023 01:31
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The X-man cometh posted:Does this mean that what we consider meat dishes were originally made with beans? Could I substitute the meat in a Bolognese sauce for beans to approximate what people used to eat? No. The meat dishes like bolognese sauce were only eaten occasionally. Other dishes that didn't have any meat would be eaten instead, for example, ribollita if you want something that is made with beans (plus leftover bread and vegetables). It's like how most American "home cooking" restaurants don't serve you goulash or casserole or the other actual everyday home cooking rural recipes but rather things eaten on special occasions like Sunday dinner or when hosting out of town guests or whatever.
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Jul 18, 2023 02:30
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The X-man cometh posted:Does this mean that what we consider meat dishes were originally made with beans? Could I substitute the meat in a Bolognese sauce for beans to approximate what people used to eat?
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Jul 18, 2023 04:56
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My girlfriend is from southern Germany, and we have a couple of oldschool cookbooks from the region. Lots and lots of lentils and root vegetables, and maybe a sausage or a bit of bacon for the entire pot of stew, for flavor. Usually the man of the house would get that in his portion. Everything was very heavy on legumes, root vegetables, noodles (spätzle), bread and cabbage, because that was all people could afford. Modern versions of the same recipes add a ton more meat, the difference is striking. Of course that contrasts wildly with my l'Art Culinaire Francaise from 1954, where seemingly every recipe starts with 300g of butter 
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Jul 18, 2023 06:46
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KozmoNaut posted:My girlfriend is from southern Germany, and we have a couple of oldschool cookbooks from the region. Yeah, a lot of actually traditional dishes are "as much meat as you can afford", starting at zero". Though a lot of south German recipes also contain a lot of cheese, especially if they are still popular in a low meat variant.
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Jul 18, 2023 10:51
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Rigatoni with chickpeas in spicy tomato sauce. Green beans and spaghetti in tomato sauce. Pesto made from foraged herbs. Ravioli with ricotta and nettles. That's the kind of veg pasta they make, and they're really wonderful everyday foods and many are extremely high on the effort:return ratio. Most of them take less time to prep than the pasta takes to cook. When they do make something with meat it's usually more like a simple tomato and basil sauce with like one sausage or lamb chop simmered in it and then served as a topping.
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Jul 18, 2023 14:27
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VictualSquid posted:Yeah, a lot of actually traditional dishes are "as much meat as you can afford", starting at zero". Though a lot of south German recipes also contain a lot of cheese, especially if they are still popular in a low meat variant. It makes me think of Patrick Leigh Fermor's account of his visit to the Hofbrauhaus in 1933, wherein he describes the "burghers" upstairs with "hands like bundles of sausages" "packing in forkload on forkload of ham, salami, frankfurter, krenwurst and blutwurst", followed by "colossal joints of meat". He doesn't describe the food in the peasant hall downstairs where he ends up drinking (probably in part because he was about to pass out from drinking and not eating himself), but I think the implication was that it, and the peasants drinking there, were a lot leaner and healthier (other than drinking vast quantities of beer).
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Jul 19, 2023 01:21
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hell yeah
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Jul 19, 2023 06:05
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Lead out in cuffs posted:It makes me think of Patrick Leigh Fermor's account of his visit to the Hofbrauhaus in 1933, wherein he describes the "burghers" upstairs with "hands like bundles of sausages" "packing in forkload on forkload of ham, salami, frankfurter, krenwurst and blutwurst", followed by "colossal joints of meat". I think 33 it should already be Brezen & Obazda (a cheese spread). With brown bread or just butter instead, if you are thrifty or additional cold cuts if you feel generous. Probably brought in by themselves from neighbouring bakers/home, instead of ordered at the HB. The only vegetables being the onions in the Obazda or some mustard cucumbers. Not actually more healthy. Or they would just not eat while drinking. VictualSquid fucked around with this message at 10:08 on Jul 19, 2023 |
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Jul 19, 2023 10:05
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VictualSquid posted:I think 33 it should already be Brezen & Obazda (a cheese spread). With brown bread or just butter instead, if you are thrifty or additional cold cuts if you feel generous. Probably brought in by themselves from neighbouring bakers/home, instead of ordered at the HB. Yeah the way it's described (the language is very flowery), it sounds like the peasant hall was basically elbow to elbow, without much room on the table for much else but the beer mug. Apparently the mugs were all metal, and the author describes the sound of them landing on the tables as being like a cannonade. He ends up passing out, having wandered the streets of Munich sipping from a bottle of schnapps while looking for the HB, then having downed three or more beers, without having remembered to eat anything. He wakes up in a carpenter's shop. The carpenter happened to have his cart full of lumber outside at the HB, so tossed the author onto the cart and carried him across Munich. The carpenter's wife appears with coffee, bread and butter, and asks the author how his katzenjammer is doing. A Time of Gifts is a great read, by the way. Lots of insight into the ways of life of a huge range of people the author meets while walking across Europe just being young, humble, educated and charming.
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Jul 19, 2023 19:54
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Lead out in cuffs posted:He ends up passing out, having wandered the streets of Munich sipping from a bottle of schnapps while looking for the HB, then having downed three or more beers, without having remembered to eat anything. These would have been three or more Maß beer, btw.
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Jul 19, 2023 21:08
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Traditionally, if you ask for anything less than half a liter, you'll be told to come back when you're thirsty.
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Jul 19, 2023 22:13
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Lead out in cuffs posted:young, humble, educated and charming.
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Jul 21, 2023 02:19
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